Privatisation from Above and from Below: A Comparative Analysis of the Privatisation of Water and Sanitation and Solid Waste Management Services in the City of Kitwe

Like most developing countries, Zambia has been going through very difficult times economically. This has seriously affected the capacity of various government agencies to provide public services. As a result the government and its agencies have over the past decade been forced to reassess the way in which publicly provided urban services are delivered. The key policy response has been a movement towards involvement of the private sector in the delivery of urban municipal services. One of the key sectors in which the government of Zambia has been keen to implement policy reform has been the water and sanitation sector. The main thrust of reform has been the creation of Commercial Water Utilities in many parts of the country. As part of this process, the Nkana Water and Sewerage Company and the Asset Holding Company-Mining Municipal Services have been formed to take over provision of water services in the city of Kitwe and the smaller town of Kalulushi. This reform process has been driven by the government, with the support of numerous bilateral donor agencies particularly the German Technical Development (GTZ) and Irish Aid and financial institutions like the World Bank. At the same time, a similar but parallel process has been going on at the local level in most Zambian cities which has seen the privatisation of solid waste management (SWM) services. This privatisation has been a more spontaneous development resulting from the recognition of the private enterprises of the economic opportunity provided by the failure of local authorities to manage their SWM. However, in places like the City of Kitwe the Local authority subsequently took a leading role in trying to manage this privatisation process. This paper analyses the experiences of these two different privatisation processes in the City of Kitwe. The paper compares the process of privatisation of Water and sanitation services driven by government on one hand with that of SWM which was managed by the local authority (Kitwe City Council) on the other hand. It highlights the parallels and the differences in the two processes focusing on evaluating how these affected eventual outcomes. Particular attention is given to the